BENDER08

So a friend of mine sent me this. I already filled up before I recevied this so ill have to try it later. If any of you try this let us know the results.

Enjoy.



i've been in petroleum pipeline business for about 31 years, currently working for the Kinder-Morgan Pipeline here in San Jose, CA.
Here are some tricks to help you get your money's worth.


1. Fill up your car or truck in the morning when the temperature is still cool. Remember that all service stations have their storage tanks buried below ground; and the colder the ground, the denser the gasoline. When it gets warmer gasoline expands, so if you're filling up in the afternoon or in the evening, what should be a gallon is not exactly a gallon. In the petroleum business, the specific gravity and temperature of the fuel (gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, ethanol and other petroleum products) are significant. Every truckload that we load is temperature-compensated so that the indicated gallonage is actually the amount pumped. A one-degree rise in temperature is a big deal for businesses, but service stations don't have temperature compensation at their pumps.


2. If a tanker truck is filling the station's tank at the time you want to buy gas, do not fill up; most likely dirt, water and sludge in the tank is being stirred up when gas is being delivered, and you might be transferring that dirt from the bottom of their tank into your car's tank.


3. Fill up when your gas tank is half-full (or half-empty), because the more gas you have in your tank the less air there is and gasoline evaporates rapidly, especially when it's warm. (Gasoline storage tanks have an internal floating 'roof' membrane to act as a barrier between the gas and the atmosphere, thereby minimizing evaporation.)


4. If you look at the trigger you'll see that it has three delivery settings: slow, medium and high. When you're filling up do not squeeze the trigger of the nozzle to the high setting. You should be pumping at the slow setting, thereby minimizing vapors created while you are pumping. Hoses at the pump are corrugated; the corrugations act as a return path for vapor recovery – from gas that already has been metered. If you are pumping at the high setting, the agitated gasoline contains more vapor, which is being sucked back into the underground tank – so you're getting less gas for your money.



Hope this will help ease your 'pain at the pump'.

CGTSX07

pretty cool, but I doubt doing the above would provide any noticeable savings

WdnUlik2no

I've also heard that #1 may have some truth to it, I don't know about the others though.

BENDER08

Number 2 is Common sense though....... I never fill up at a gas station that is being refilled

stright-(paint)balling

#1. maybe works
the rest i call bull shit on.

Moog-Type-S

#1 is true...and #2 is somewhat true.

rt4563

None of these techniques cost anything to use, and only a small investment of time, so why not?


If these ideas save you only 1% of your total gas bill, that's worth about $25 per year, more or less. Not a ton of money, but every little bit helps.

(For my example, I took $45 in gas purchases per week x 52 weeks per year x 1% to get $23.40)

studville

True... but pumping gas on the slow setting? I'm an impatient person, I guess.

Cocoa

iTrader: (2)

I've read this before. #1 makes sense, so I've been doing it since high school.

Eoanou

Yeah and not to mention the gas you are using is probably the gas from the last refill, a week or two ago.

spdy0001

all make sense, and i never pump while the station is being filled.

However even though the others make sense to me, I doubt I would ever plan ahead enough to utilize these tips

Billiam

While I think item 1 is theoretically true, I still question it's validity. For typical soil/clay I thought ground temperature hardly changes at all once you go down three or four feet.

khiyal

#1 certainly holds true for CNG, but for regular gas, not sure.

Scottman111

What I was thinking.

Pull_T

CNG isn't sold by volume though...is sold by weight for precisely this reason.

As far as gasoline being more dense when it is cooler...the answer is yes, but not in any amount to be at all significant. Liquids do not react strongly at all to thermal expansion and contraction.

Pull_T

"In the petroleum business, the specific gravity and temperature of the fuel (gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, ethanol and other petroleum products) are significant. Every truckload that we load is temperature-compensated so that the indicated gallonage is actually the amount pumped. A one-degree rise in temperature is a big deal for businesses, but service stations don't have temperature compensation at their pumps."

Simply untrue. Specific gravity is important with Natural gas and any other petroleum product sold in gaseous form.

There is no such thing as temperature compensation in order to confirm that a gallon is really a gallon. A gallon is a measure of volume only. You cannot make slight adjustments to a gallon to compensate for temperature...because then it isn't a gallon.

If I fill a gallon jug with water, it has a certain weight (about 4 kilograms)

If I fill a gallon jug with steel ball bearings, it might weigh 16 kilos.

So to make a gallon of ball bearngs do I only fill the jug to 1/4 full? No.

moeronn

While many of those items may technically be true - I get gas when I need it and get out of there as fast as possible. If taking half the time costs me 1%, that's fine by me.

herbalist

you're high

TzarChasm

All of these things might be sort of true, but really are a little bit of simple science being expanded to rediculous levels.

#1: the theory is that things that are cooler are more dense, simple science right? Except that after 5' or so the ground temp is pretty constant, every wonder why bodies go 6' under? Gas tanks go down '12 or '15 at the bottom, no way is outside temp affecting that. Plus there is the fact that, as mentioned above, liquids are not very suceptible to weight change and a gallon is still a gallon.

#2: the theory is that putting more gas in is stirring up crap, just like if you put some sand in a bucket and pour water on top. More simple science. Except that gas is drained from the bottom anyway, so using that theory you would be better off getting your gas when its stirred up, instead of getting the sludge that has settled to the bottom. Bottom line is: the gas stations try pretty hard not to get crap in the tanks, and if they do, there are filters that are supposed to catch most of it. Sometimes things get through, its true, but timing when they fill up is not going to improve your chances any.

#3 gas evaporates at room temprature so it must be evaporating right out of your tank right? Well, maybe, although I suspect that the one way valve and a metal feeder tube that is probably cooler than the plastic gas tank would take care of that. My guess is that you could save about a spoonful of gas every 900 tankfulls or so, while using hundreds of gallons more gas by doubling your stops at the gas station. I'll rate this one plausable, but not recomended.

#4 works on the same theory as #3, gas evaporates so some of it must be going back into the tube. Again, this is a misdirection. It's true that some is going back into the tube, that's what they are there for, but it's an incredebly tiny amount. Maybe not quite as small as the amount saved by #3 but still your talking about a microscopic amount every tankfull. 10 fillups later and it's still a microscopic amount. The amount you lose might be enough to get one of you're pistons to fire once. Amount used over the life of the car? About another spoonful. Of course thats just talking about what IS lost, not how you use the pump. In reality, since surface area has more to do with evaporation than agitation does, you are probably losing MORE gas to evaporation if you pump it in slow than if you pump it in fast.

Whoever wrote this (not the OP) was probably just trying to have some fun with people. It sure made me laugh.

Yumcha

Well, I guess I can fill up whenever I want up here when the deepfreeze hits...?

Pull_T

#3 is also bad simply because the mileage penalty from always carrying half or more of a tank of gas. That would far outweigh any saving via reduced evaporation.

If one were concerned about maximizng mileage to every possible degree, they would carry always as *little* gas as possible

The Dougler

iTrader: (1)

#1 don't know about the states but in canada under the weights and measures acts our gas pumps by law self correct the volume to a base temperature of 15c. So that's out of the questions in the great white north.

Ashburner

Like I'm really going to fill up my gas tank at high noon in Houston on the fucking SLOW setting!!!!!!!

jupitersolo

You didn't give use a poll option for being HIGH

BENDER08

If the mods want to add that one on Knock your selfs out.

Will Y.

So what does the "UGH" poll option mean-- is it the same as "Urg?" or "Auugh!"?

And I thought that your buddy's suggestions would not make much of a difference in fuel usage.

BENDER08

Ugh is like you know when someone asks you something and you open your mouth and go ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhh/ummmmmm like you know but you dont know. maybe in the middle like the glass is half full or half empty.........



For me those suggestions where new so im like ugh anyone try it to see any results